Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes The Belmar just keeps on delivering. We had a fantastic breakfast, the tastiest eggs I’ve had in years, scrummy bacon, fresh pineapple, homemade granola drizzled with local honey and the best banana cake ever…what a feast to set us up for the day! We were on the first tour of the day at Monteverde Cloud…
Category: Costa Rica
Luxury in the clouds
Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes No sign of the volcano this morning, we were lucky to see what we did yesterday. We had an adventurous 3 hour drive to Monteverde on mostly unpaved roads. It was bone shaking but not nearly as bad as we’d been warned. Mike had a hotel in mind (The Belmar) so we rocked up on…
Arenal reveals itself
Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes We opened the curtains this morning and saw a little more of the volcano…it’s teasing us! We drove to the park and spent a few hours hiking the trails. We saw lava flows, amazingly huge fig trees and our first coati which we were very excited about, little did we know that within 24 hours…
Thermal baths and creatures of the night
Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes Back to the dirt field and corrugated shed that is Drakes Bay airport. The scenic 45 minute flight back to San Jose was a trip highlight in itself, it felt like quite the adventure flying over the rainforest in a little prop plane enjoying the stunning views below. Back in San Jose, we picked up…
Creatures in Corcodova
Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes Our 5am early start began with a 90 minute boat ride then 3 hours of nature with our guide Rolando. On arrival at Corcodova I took a photo of my nice clean hiking boots anticipating that they would never look this new again, and I was right. Over the course of 3 hours we saw…
Sea sickness and sharks at Drake Bay
Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes Monday was another early start and in no time we were on a little prop plane to Drake Bay on the Osa Peninsula. We’ve been to rain forests before but none as remote or rainy as this. The drive from the landing strip to the guest house was an adventure in itself; piled into the…
Howler monkey wake-up call
Estimated Reading Time: < 1 minute I was woken at 5am by a very different dawn chorus than I am used to…howler monkeys. What a fantastic noise! We had some time to kill before joining up with today’s rafting group so we went for another rain forest hike and swam in a different waterfall than yesterday before rafting back to civilization…
Why did the sloth cross the road?
Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes The first 48 hours in Costa Rica have been BRILLIANT! White water rafting on the Pacuare River was SO good. The river is recognized as one of the top 5 most beautiful raft-able rivers in the world (National Geographic Magazine) and I see why it would earn that status. Our rafting company Rio Tropicales was…